Future Tense (episode)
Enterprise finds a small craft — apparently from the future — adrift in space, and both the Suliban and the mysterious Tholians are intent on retrieving it. Summary ''Enterprise'' finds a shipwreck that appears to have no apparent weapon damage, but its hull prevents any extensive scans. They bring it on board and discover a human corpse in it. Since this human went farther than any other, hypotheses are made about its identity: Could it be the long lost Zefram Cochrane? A rendezvous with the Vulcan starship Tal'Kir is scheduled to bring the wreck back to Earth and examine it further. Trip and Malcolm continue examining the ship but neither of them can find anything that looks like a propulsion system, a black box or even a power source. What they find is even stranger: a hatch leading to a new room that makes the ship bigger from the inside that it is from the outside. Not long after, a Suliban salvage ship drops out of warp and claims salvage rights on the wreck. Jonathan Archer is not ready to give it up so easily, but the Suliban captain cuts the discussion short by opening fire on the Enterprise. The salvage ship is no match for the NX ship and, even after transporting a team of soldiers/saboteurs on the Enterprise, the Sulibans decide to pull back. Meanwhile, Phlox discovered strange patterns in the corpse's DNA: even if it's mainly human, it contains DNA segments from many differents species, notably Vulcan ones. Since there are no records of Human-Vulcan mating to date, Archer begins to suspect the ship is from the future. He pays a little visit to Daniels's quarters and finds out this is effectively the case – the ship is from the 31st century. Shortly after, a Tholian starship repeats the same pattern as the Sulibans before, but they also pull back when Archer threatens to destroy the wreck to prevent the Tholians from having it. In the launch bay, Trip is finally able to get some power back to the ship. The power restoration is followed by two experiences of déjà vu, and after investigation, they detect high energy particles emitted by the ship and conclude it is some kind of temporal radiation. The launch bay is then sealed off. Only a couple of minutes from the rendezvous point with the Vulcan cruiser, the Sulibans are back, this time with reinforcements. Archer decides that the Enterprise can sustain the Sulibans' fire for a little while and decides to make a run for the rendezvous point. When they drop out of warp however, it is only to realize the Vulcans have been disabled by a squadron of Tholian ships. Fortunately for Enterprise, the Tholians engage the Sulibans first. By the time the Tholians get rid of the Sulibans, Trip has activated a temporal beacon and the ship from the future has been loaded with a warhead. Even if the Tholians finally get what they wanted, the corpse, the beacon and the ship quickly dematerialize, probably a consequence of activating the beacon. Background Information * This episode is the first appearance of the Tholians in almost 34 years, since they first appeared in TOS: "The Tholian Web". * Early drafts for "Future Tense" had the [[USS Defiant (NCC-1764)|USS Defiant]] appearing instead of a timeship from the 31st century. The Defiant would later appear in "In a Mirror, Darkly". * This episode alludes to the TOS episode "Metamorphosis", in which Zefram Cochrane is discovered alive and well living with a non-corporeal lifeform. * Among the images in the 'temporal database', are schematics for a Klingon ''Raptor''-class ship, an ''Intrepid''-class starship (possibly the [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]]), an Intrepid-class aeroshuttle, the MIR space station, the US space shuttle, a Nygean ship, a Romulan ''D'deridex''-class warbird, a ''Nova''-class ship, the unnamed ship that attacked Enterprise in "Fight or Flight", and an upside-down ''Surak''-class starship. *Also in the database is a news article on President George W. Bush's state of the Union Address for 2003. Memorable Quotes "It's unlikely we could reproduce." "Humans and Vulcans." : - T'Pol, after she got a strange look from Jonathan Archer Links and References Guest Stars *Vaughn Armstrong as Maxwell Forrest *Cullen Douglas as Suliban Soldier References Bush, George; B'Saari; Cochrane, Zefram; Cochrane family; D'Kyr type; Future Guy; hyper spanner; micro-caliper; Stegosaurus; Suliban; Suliban Cabal; Suliban cell ship; Suliban salvage ship; Tal'Kir; Temporal Cold War; Tholians; Tholian Assembly; Tholian starship; Time-travel pod; Vega colony; Vulcan command cruiser Vulcan High Command; Vulcan Science Directorate. Category: ENT episodes de:Die Zukunft nl:Future Tense